South Moluccans demanding independence from Indonesia today hurled fire bombs at the Hague Peace Palace in Netherlands, headquarters of the International Court of Justice, after scaling its closed gates, and smashing windows and doors. Then 500 of them, hurling stones and fire bombs, clashed outside the Indonesian Embassy with 150 policemen, who arrested eight. While firemen put out the blaze at the Peace Palace, other demonstrators headed for the residence of the Dutch Premier Joop M. den Uyl, where they handed in a petition. A spokesman for the demonstrators said the protest was against what he called the torlure of South Moluccans in Indonesia. The Moluccas, formerly known as the Spice Islands, lie at the southeastern tip of the Indonesian archipelago, near Papua New Guinea, and form a province of Indonesia. South Moluccans living in the Netherlands want an independent state and have set up a government in exile.
An explosion and a fire in a coal mine near Liévin killed 41 miners in the worst mine disaster in France since World War II. An explosion and fire tore through a 2,100-foot deep shaft of a coal mine in this northern French town today, leaving 41 men dead and six badly burned. Officials said one injured man was in critical condition. Officials said the explosion was probably caused by accumulations of either methane or coal dust. Industry Minister Michel d’Ornano, said at the pithead that rescue work was still in progress and that “a final casualty toll still cannot be given.” The blast occurred at 6:15 AM, only 15 minutes after the men had returned to work following a five‐day Christmas vacation.
Nine people were killed and 65 others were injured today after two trains collided just outside Lisbon’s main railroad station. One train was slowing down to come into the Santa Apolonia station and the other headed for Coimbra, had just pulled out when the accidents happened. Witnesses said the collision occurred after the last coach of the northbound train jumped the rails and was hit by the oncoming train.
Eighteen more persons have been found strangled by steel wire in a wave of political assassinations in the northern Ethiopian city of Asmara, Western diplomats said today. This raised to nearly 50 the known such killings in the capital of Eritrea Province since the violence began last Sunday. Diplomats said all the victims were students in their late teens or early 20’s of no local prominence. There has been no official explanation of who is behind the violence, which has badly frightened the city of 250,000 inhabitants. The Eritrean Liberation Front has been intermittently fighting for independence since the former Italian colony was annexed in 1962 by Ethiopia to become her 14th province.
Iran’s feelings will be with the Arabs if another Middle East war breaks out, Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi of Iran said in an interview published today in the semiofficial Cairo newspaper Al‐Ahram. But he said that his country would not join in the fighting, as had been inferred from another interview he gave, because of geographic and other obstacles. The Shah said every effort should be made to bring about close regional cooperation so that the big powers would understand they had no military role in the area. The Shah plans to visit Egypt early next month as part of Iran’s new efforts to woo the Arabs.
Former Thai Premier Thanom Kittikachorn was reported to be under arrest in Bangkok today, following his unexpected return to Thailand after nearly 15 months of exile in Boston. After an emergency meeting of the Cabinet, Deputy Premier Prakob Hutsingha said that Mr. Thanom, a former field marshal, would be detained by the Ministry of Defense because he had entered the country without government permission. A Government communiqué asserted that Mr. Thanom had been “involved in the suppression of students and people” in the October, 1973, uprising, which ousted his 10‐year‐old military regime. The communiqué said that legal action would be taken against him. Mr. Thanom, who is 63 years old, was forced into exile after mass demonstrations by students in Bangkok. He and his wife apparently arrived in Thailand at 4:20 AM today on a scheduled flight of Lufthansa German Airlines from Frankfurt.
The coalition Laotian Government sent a delegation of Communists and rightists today to negotiate with rebel soldiers holding the border town of Ban Houayxay in northwest Laos. A spokesman for the Communist Pathet Lao denied a report that more than 300 Pathet Lao troops had moved into the town to support the rebels. But the intelligence chief for the Royal Lao Army, Brigadier General Thao Ly, insisted that Communist forces had advanced from the cease‐fire lines 20 miles northeast of Ban Houayxay and moved into the town. About 100 Lao Theung tribesmen who were taken into the Laotian Army earlier this year seized the town on Tuesday. They demanded, among other things, repeal of a 1971 law banning the cultivation for sale of opium, the area’s chief cash crop.
South Korean riot policemen today freed Kim Young Sam, the opposition party leader, from a 10‐hour captivity by 200 army veterans in the provincial city of Taegu. Asserting that Mr. Kim had offended their honor, members of local association of wounded veterans stormed into his hotel demanding that he apologize for the alleged slur. Mr. Kim and 13 other lawmakers of the New Democratic party were visiting Taegu to speak at an anti‐government rally tomorrow designed to gain support for a revision of the Constitution. Emerging from his detention today, Mr. Kim charged the government with indirectly instigating the veterans to riot. Also today the opposition party’s offices in Taegu were attacked by the local police.
Japanese Premier Takeo Miki made public today a program to reform his ruling Liberal‐Democratic party’s handling of political contributions “to eliminate the distorted image of the party in its relation with business enterprises.” The reform plan calls for replacement of political contributions from business enterprise with donations from individuals. However, the program provides a transition period of three years for enforcing the new rule. During this period, the party will restrict corporate contributions. The Home Ministry announced this week that Japan’s 1,373 political organizations, inoluding the five major political parties, received a combined total of $172‐million in political donations between January and June this year. The five major political parties received a combined total of $75.9‐million, or 44.1 per cent of the total. The ruling party topped the list with $49‐million, followed by the Communist party with $14‐million.
Japan continued to have a sizable surplus in her trade balance in November because of strong export business, the Finance Ministry announced today. A large deficit in the longterm capital account was covered by an inflow of dollars through the short‐term capital account and unidentified items grouped as errors and omissions, the ministry said.
The Pentagon tried to get President Eisenhower to approve the use of tactical nuclear weapons in 1958 during a confrontation between Nationalist and Communist China, the columnist Jack Anderson said today. Mr. Anderson said a secret study for the Rand Corporation in 1968 of the crisis over attacks by Peking on Quemoy and Matsu, offshore islands held by Taiwan, had found that “the generals deliberately deceived the White House, which was misled, therefore, into tentatively approving the use of nuclear weapons to defend the islands.” “In other words,” Mr. Anderson said, “the United States was ready to fight a nuclear war 16 years ago over two insignificant islands, which today draw no more than a shrug from our policymakers.” He said the report, written by Morton H. Halperin, a former national security adviser, was among the secret documents stolen October 1 from the home of Daniel Ellsberg, recovered by the police and subsequently passed on to a House of Representatives committee, which has scheduled hearings when Congress reconvenes.
When China began shelling the islands, defended by Chiang Kai‐shek’s troops, United States strategists believed an invasion was on the way. The report said: “The military brass wanted to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy China’s underground munitions dumps and gun emplacements. “The Pentagon, therefore, falsely informed the White House that the available Air Force planes had no bomb racks that could accommodate high explosive conventional bombs powerful enough to knock out the underground installations. It would take ‘nukes,’ the Pentagon insisted, to do the job.” The report said that President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, made plans to use the nuclear weapons, but the crisis simmered down before the President actually gave the order to fire them.
The cyclone that shattered most of Darwin, Australia on Christmas Day struck at a time when this northern city was striving to shake off the rough frontier reputation that had clung to it since its founding in 1869. Today, as the evacuation of the homeless continued — some reports said that at least 5,000 of the city’s 43,000 people had already been flown to other cities — there were new government pledges that Darwin would be rebuilt. Thus, the old frontier town, which was also flattened by a cyclone in 1897 and heavily bombed by the Japanese during World War II, has a new chance to become a model city. Many here these days were recalling the devastating Japanese attack of February, 1942, that has been described as Australia’s Pearl Harbor. That raid was carried out by 242 Japanese planes, and it killed 243 people.
In Managua, Nicaragua, an FSLN commando unit, headed by Edén Pastora, burst into the house of José María Castillo, former president of the Banco Central, and took his guests hostage (including two relatives of the dictator Somoza). Three days later, thanks to the intermediation of Miguel Obando y Bravo, the Archbishop of Managua, the hostages were released, in exchange for $1 million and the freedom of 14 political prisoners. Castillo and three guards were the only victims of the action.
A train and a bus collided at a railroad crossing on the outskirts of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro early today, killing 18 and seriously injuring 18, railroad spokesman said. The bus was hit by a suburban train of the Brazil Cen tral Railroad in the suburb of Nova Iguacu, he said.
The USSR performs a nuclear test at the Semipalatinsk Test Site in northeast Kazakhstan.
President Ford held a meeting with 15 advisers in Vail, Colorado, where he is vacationing, in an attempt to work out new policy proposals on energy that would both increase the supply and restrict consumption. Ron Nessen, the White House press secretary, described the meeting as “intense,” and said the President had ordered that there be “no public discussion” of the options under consideration. Ford said, “This is going to be a comprehensive program and it’s going to deal with both increasing supply and it’s going to deal with restricting consumption and it’s going to deal with three time frames: the short term, which is between now and 1977; the mid‐term, which is 1977 to 1985, and the long term, which is beyond 1985. It’s going to deal with the impact of the energy policy on the domestic economy and it’s going to deal with the impact on the international economy and on international relations.”
Today was the first day since he arrived here December 21 that Mr. Ford did not go skiing. The meeting began at 10 AM, Mountain Standard Time, recessed for a buffet lunch, and continued all afternoon. This was the third such meeting Mr. Ford has had in an effort to evolve a new energy policy that would deal with shortages and dependence on Middle‐Eastern oil. Mr. Ford’s advisers have promoted a number of proposals, some conflicting, and the President was described as having his own ideas. At the last meeting, in Washington, Mr. Nessen said, the President “asked his advisers to go back and bring in proposals which are closer to his ideas, and that is what happened today.” Mr. Ford has repeatedly put down speculation that he was considering a higher tax on gasoline as a way to discourage automobile driving, although some of his advisers have insisted that it still is alive.
The prosecution completed its final arguments at the Watergate cover-up trial by telling the jurors that it was now up to them to “balance the accounts” and close the ledgers on Watergate. “It’s no fun casting stones,” the chief prosecutor, James Neal, told the jury. “But to keep society going, stones must be cast. People must be called to account… This government that’s represented here does not cast stones with joy or happiness.” The jurors are scheduled to begin their deliberations Monday after getting instructions in the law from Judge John Sirica. Mr. Neal’s appeal, made in the final moments of his closing statement to the jury, concluded all but the final stage of the trial — the judge’s instructions and the jurors’ deliberations.
President Ford signed legislation today providing $200,000 for former President Richard M. Nixon’s pension and office expenses. The funds, cut drastically by Congress from Mr. Ford’s original request of $850,000, include $55,000 for Mr. Nixon’s pension and an allowance for a reduced staff and office expenses. One of the major items Congress cut from the bill was funds for Mr. Nixon to build or buy a vault in California to store the White House tapes and other documents from his Administration. The legislation prohibits the use of any funds from the supplemental appropriation for transferring the tapes or other Nixon Administration documents to California.
Federal Judge Arthur Garrity held three Boston school committeemen in civil contempt of court for refusing to approve a citywide busing plan for desegregation. He took under advisement until Monday what penalties he might impose on the committee members. Near the end of a court hearing, Judge Garrity appeared to be proposing a solution in which the committee would somehow “submit” the plan without approving it, although the committeemen had been firm in their opposition. Judge Garrity had ordered the School Committee to draft a plan for next fall, approve it — he insisted on the approval — and submit it to him on December 16. But minutes before the plan was due, the school committee voted 3 to 2 against approving it.
In the closing minutes of the day‐long hearing today, Judge Garrity appeared to be proposing a solution in which the committee would somehow “submit” the plan as the official School Committee plan without “approving” it. But only moments before, under the judge’s questioning, the three committee members stubbornly repeated their opposition to the citywide plan drawn up by the School Department staff. “I can’t go for a plan that calls for a forced busing of schoolchildren,” said Chairman John J. Kerrigan, who spoke of the city’s blacks as a “hostile, militant community.”
Governor Milton J. Shapp vetoed today a so-called antibusing bill that he said could have produced “another Boston” in Pennsylvania by stripping the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission of its powers to end racial desegregation.
Congress will be making “a big mistake” if it undertakes too strong an investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency for alleged domestic spying, Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican of Arizona, said today. Mr. Goldwater, holding his annual news conference from his home, said that he had no knowledge of domestic spying but that the CIA should be allowed to keep “domestic subversives” under surveillance. “I don’t think anybody could say we don’t have some people who wouldn’t want to overthrow the government,” he said. “It would want to know more about the background of people like Daniel Ellsberg and what’s behind them.” He also said that he could not support Vice President Rockefeller for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1976, but “would he active in support” of Governor Ronald Reagan of California.
Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court denied today an appeal by the Young Socialist Alliance co bar the Federa, Bureau of Investigation from attending and monitoring its convention in St. Louis. The alliance, which is the youth organization of the Socialist Workers party, begins its political convention tomorrow. It had sought to bar undercover F.B.I. agents from attending and had won such an order in Federal District Court in New York City. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the ruling, however. Today Justice Marshall upheld the Court of Appeals in a six‐page opinion after closed hearings in his chambers. After the ruling lawyers for the alliance took the matter to Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., but he declined to hear the case.
The Commerce Department reported that the United States balance of export and import trade slipped back into a modest deficit in November after a small surplus in October. The deficit, $113 million, was the sixth in the last seven months and brought the excess of imports over exports for the year to $2.4 billion. The deficit was more than accounted for by one product — oil.
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare is working on emergency measures to make certain that the nation’s physicians do not lose their malpractice insurance coverage Secretary Casper W. Weinberger said today.
A House committee that conducted a nine-month study of air hazards accused the Federal Aviation Administration of avoiding leadership and showing signs of “sluggishness which at times approaches an attitude of indifference to public safety.” The Special Subcommittee on Investigations said that the F.A.A. had “needlessly and unjustifiably put at risk” thousands of lives by failing to deal properly with dangers of the DC-10 jumbo jet for almost two years.
Judge Jay Rubinow of Connecticut’s Superior Court ruled that the state’s system of financing public schools was unconstitutional, in a decision that could add momentum to a developing national trend. The judge declared that Connecticut’s existing system of distributing school funds evenly to towns according to the number of pupils in school does nothing to correct the inequities arising from the disparate wealth of those towns. His decision was based on the assumption that the state would appeal to Connecticut’s Supreme Court.
The New Jersey state Senate agreed to hold a special session on January 6 after another unsuccessful attempt to devise a tax program that would meet the state Supreme Court’s December 31 deadline for a new system of financing New Jersey’s public schools. The present system of school financing, based on local taxes, was declared unconstitutional.
The bodies of Doreen Carlucci, 14, and Joanne Delardo, 15, of Woodbridge Township, New Jersey, murder victims, were found today in a wooded area of this Monmouth County community, the state police said. The police said the bodies were discovered about 4 p.m., shortly after a man riding a bicycle along Pergolaville road spotted one of them a short distance from the road. The man called the State police, and, after a brief search, the second body was found. A state police spokesman said one of the girls was nude and the other clad only in shoes and a sweater. He said the cause of their deaths could not immediately be determined. The crimes remain unsolved to this day. The prime suspect, serial killer Robert Zarinski, died while in prison for other murders.
The “Dear Abby” show ends run on CBS radio after 11 years.
Amy Vanderbilt, the widely-read authority on etiquette and social graces, fell or jumped to her death from a second-story window of her home at 438 East 87th Street in New York City, the police said. She was 66 years old.
40th Heisman Trophy Award: Archie Griffin, Ohio State (running back).
Hank Stram, the only coach the Kansas City Chiefs have had in their 15-year existence, was dismissed today as coach and vice president of the National Football League team.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 602.16 (-2.58, -0.43%).
Born:
Jay Pandolfo, NHL left wing and right wing (NHL Champions, Stanley Cup-Devils, 2000, 2003; New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, Boston Bruins), in Winchester, Massachusetts.
Trey Teague, NFL center, tackle, and long snapper (Denver Broncos, Buffalo Bills), in Jackson, Tennessee.
Nate Bland, MLB pitcher (Houston Astros), in Birmingham, Alabama.
Kylee Cochran, American actress (“The Crow: Salvation”, “Sedona”), in Brigham City, Utah.
Masi Oka, Japanese actor, producer, and digital effects artist; in Shibuya, Tokyo.
Died:
Amy Vanderbilt, 66, American authority on etiquette, newspaper columnist, and author of the bestseller “Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette,” after falling from a second-floor window of her townhouse in Manhattan in New York City.
Bob Custer [Raymond Glenn], 76, American silent and sound screen actor (“The Fighting Hombre”; “The Law of the Wild”), of a heart attack.
Samuel Comer, 81, four-time Academy Award-winning set decorator.
Vladimir Fock, 76, Soviet physicist.
[Edson is currently preserved as a museum ship at Bay City, Michigan.]
History Diaries 